The Senate convened for the first time at Federal Hall in New York City. Bay State senator Caleb Strong of Northampton appeared, but because only eight senators were present, there were not enough to constitute a quorum. The body was forced to adjourn each day, until April 6, when it achieved its first quorum of 12 members out of the eligible 22.

Samuel Dexter of Boston resigned his Senate seat after the Senate confirmed his nomination as secretary of war. Dexter served in the administration of President John Adams. On December 30, 1800, the Senate confirmed Dexter as secretary of the treasury, a position he held from January 1, 1801, to May 6, 1801.

1803

(February 8)

The state senate, of which he was a member, concurred with the lower house in electing John Quincy Adams of Braintree, to the U.S. Senate. He took his Senate oath of office on October 21 and began recording his view of Senate proceedings in his private diary.

1803

(March 4)

Timothy Pickering of Wenham, who had served as postmaster general, secretary of war, and secretary of state under George Washington and John Adams, took his Senate seat.

1808

(June 8)

John Quincy Adams resigned from the Senate after the Massachusetts legislature held an early election to select his replacement. He was forced from office for refusing to obey the legislature's instructions to push for repeal of the Embargo Act.

1810

(December 31)

Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky introduced a resolution to condemn the actions of Massachusetts senator Timothy Pickering for violating a Senate rule by reading confidential documents in open Senate session. The Senate approved Clay's resolution, making Pickering the first senator to receive its formal censure.

The Senate confirmed the nomination of former senator John Quincy Adams as secretary of state. Adams served in the administration of President James Monroe from September 22, 1817 to March 3, 1825.

1820

(March 15)

The Massachusetts District of Maine became a separate state. On May 16, at the conclusion of the first session of the 16th Congress, Senator Prentiss Mellen, a resident of Portland in the Maine District, resigned to make way for Maine's two elected senators, who took their seats when the second session convened on November 13, 1820.

1825

(February 9)

Former senator John Quincy Adams was elected president of the United States after the election was decided by the House of Representatives. None of the candidates--Adams, Andrew Jackson, William Crawford, and Henry Clay--received a majority of electoral votes, so following the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, the House of Representatives chose from among the top three candidates. Despte the fact that Adams trailed in both the popular vote and the Electoral College, the House chose him over Jackson and Crawford.

Senator Daniel Webster of Boston began a two-day reply to earlier remarks by South Carolina senator Robert Hayne. He challenged the South's seeming willingness to subvert the Union for regional economic gain and its assertion that a state could defy any act of Congress that conflicted with its interests. Webster broadened a debate on tariffs, slavery, and land into a consideration of national sovereignty. This debate established Webster as a major statesman and confirmed the brilliance of his oratorical skills. Historian Allan Nevins proclaimed his remarks the most eloquent speech ever delivered in Congress.

Daniel Webster resigned from the Senate to become U.S. secretary of state. He was nominated and then confirmed by the Senate on March 5, and took office on March 6, serving until May 8, 1843. He was replaced in the Senate for the balance of his term by Rufus Choate of Salem, another noted Bay State orator. Choate is memorialized in a statue by Daniel Chester French at the Old Suffolk County Courthouse in Boston.

1850

(March 7)

Daniel Webster, who had returned to the Senate in 1845, delivered one of the most celebrated speeches in the nation's history. Addressing the Senate in support of the Compromise of 1850, he spoke the famous opening lines: "I wish to speak today not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a northern man, but as an American, . . . I speak today for the preservation of the Union. Hear me for my cause." His support for that compromise's Fugitive Slave Act created a political firestorm among his Massachusetts constituents and led to his resignation from the Senate, on July 22, 1850 (after he had been nominated and confirmed as secretary of state).

1850

(July 20)

The Senate confirmed the nomination of Daniel Webster as secretary of state under President Millard Fillmore. Webster first served as secretary of state from 1841 to 1843, under Presidents Harrison and Tyler. Secretary of State Webster delivered a well-received two-hour oration at the July 4, 1851, ceremony featuring the laying of a cornerstone for the U.S. Capitol wings that currently house the Senate and House Chambers.

1851

(December 20)

The Senate confirmed the nomination of Benjamin Robbins Curtis of Watertown as associate justice of the Supreme Court. Curtis had received a recess appointment on September 22 of that year. Six years later, as one of the Court's two dissenters from the notorious Dred Scott case, he resigned from the Court--the only justice ever to depart on a matter of principle. In 1868 Curtis served as lead defense attorney in the Senate impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson.

1856

The Senate purchased a marble statue of Massachusetts patriot John Hancock by Horatio Stone for display on the second floor of the Capitol's Senate wing.

1856

(May 22)

Symbolic of the increasingly bitter sectional divisions over the slavery issue in the Kansas Territory, South Carolina representative Preston Brooks attacked antislavery advocate Senator Charles Sumner of Boston in the Senate Chamber. Sumner's severe beating followed his provocative remarks three days earlier in a speech entitled "The Crime Against Kansas." Sumner was signing his postal frank to envelopes containing printed copies of that address when Brooks assaulted him. This event, symbolizing violence over reasoned deliberation, became a major milestone on the road to civil war.

1861

(April 22)

The Massachusetts Sixth Regiment was quartered in the Senate Chamber after suffering casualties in Baltimore on its way to defend the nation's capital at the outbreak of the Civil War.

Henry Wilson became chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs (precursor to today's Committee on Armed Services), and held this influential post through the Civil War and reconstruction years, until 1871.

George Boutwell of Groton resigned his seat in the House of Representatives following Senate confirmation of his nomination as secretary of treasury in the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant. Boutwell resigned his cabinet post on March 16, 1873, when the Massachusetts legislature elected him to fill Henry Wilson's vacant Senate seat. He served in the Senate until March 3, 1877.

Vice President Henry Wilson died in his Capitol office adjacent to the Senate Chamber. Three days later, he followed Charles Sumner in being accorded the honor of lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda.

The Senate commissioned Daniel Chester French to prepare a marble portrait bust of John Adams, the nation's first vice president. The Senate placed that work—the first in a newly authorized vice-presidential collection—on display in the gallery of the Senate Chamber in 1890. French was not pleased with the $800 fee the Senate had set for each of the portrait busts: "I consider it an honor and worth a great deal to have a bust of mine in so important a position. I do not know how many sculptors you will find who will look at it in the same way."

1893

(April 6)

Senator George F. Hoar delivered a two-day speech opposing a constitutional amendment providing for direct popular election of U.S. senators. He argued that such a change would promote electoral corruption and produce senators of inferior quality. His remarks became legendary in his time and served to block active consideration of such an amendment for another decade.

1894

The Senate acquired a portrait bust of Charles Sumner, sculpted by Martin Milmore, noted for his Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common. The Massachusetts state legislature had received the bust in 1875, and then presented it to George Curtis, editor of Harper's Weekly, in appreciation of the eulogy of Sumner he delivered before that body. The Senate acquired the bust as a gift from Curtis's widow.

David I. Walsh of Clinton became the first Democrat to represent Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate in the 68 years since 1851. (Five years earlier, he had become the state's first Roman Catholic governor.) He lost that seat in 1924 but staged a political comeback in 1926, winning the seat again and serving until 1947.

Calvin Coolidge of Northampton presided over the Senate as the 29th vice president of the United States. He became president of the United States upon the death of Warren G. Harding on August 3, 1923, and was elected to a second term as president in 1924, serving until March 3, 1929.

1921

(March 4)

The Senate confirmed the nomination of former senator John Weeks to serve as secretary of war. Weeks had served in the Senate from 1913 to 1919.

1925

(March 4)

Frederick H. Gillett of Westfield took his Senate oath following a 32-year career in the U.S. House of Representatives. During his last six years in the House, Gillett served as Speaker. Although he explained that he would rather be Speaker of the House than hold any other position in the world, Gillett loyally yielded to President Calvin Coolidge's insistence that he run for the Senate as their mutual home state's strongest possible Republican candidate. He chose not to seek reelection in 1930 and devoted his retirement to writing a biography of his father-in-law, former Massachusetts senator George Frisbie Hoar.

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., resigned from the Senate to resume military service during World War II. Two years earlier, as an incumbent senator, he had served with American tank crews in Libya. A subsequent order by the War Department prohibiting members of Congress from active duty in the armed forces prompted his definite conclusion that, "given my age [42] and military training, I must henceforth serve my country as a combat soldier in the Army overseas." In 1946, following his tour of duty in Europe, Lodge won reelection to the Senate.

Senator Edward William Brooke III of Newton Centre became the first African American to serve in the Senate since the Reconstruction era of the 1870s. He was also the only black member to serve in the 112 years between 1881 and 1993.

1969

(January 3)

Senator Edward Kennedy defeated incumbent Senate Democratic whipRussell Long (D-LA) for that post by a vote of 31 to 26. Two years later, Kennedy lost the whip's job to Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV). Despite the bitterness of that moment, the two senators later became close personal friends.

1978

(November 7)

Paul Tsongas of Lowell defeated incumbent senator Edward Brooke. Diagnosed in 1983 with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, he chose not to seek a second term in 1984. Tsongas later won the symbolically important 1992 New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary, but, in the first electoral defeat of his career, lost the nomination to Bill Clinton.

Senator Edward Kennedy won the Massachusetts Democratic presidential primary, besting the incumbent, President Jimmy Carter. Kennedy would go on to win eight more state primaries plus the District of Columbia before withdrawing his bid for the presidency in August.

1987

(January 6)

Edward Kennedy became chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources (today's Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions), a position he held until the beginning of the 104th Congress in 1995. He chaired the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions from 2001 to 2003 and again from 2007 until his death in 2009.

John F. Kennedy posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by the president of the United States to honor individuals who have made great contributions to either the United States or the world. To date, 24 senators have received the award.

Former senator Edward Brooke received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by the president of the United States to honor individuals who have made great contributions to either the United States or the world. To date, 24 senators have received the award.

2004

(July 29)

Senator John F. Kerry won nomination as the Democratic Party's candidate for president of the United States. He lost the November general election to incumbent president George W. Bush by 34 electoral votes out of 538 cast.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by the president of the United States to honor individuals who have made great contributions to either the United States or the world. To date, 24 senators have received the award.

2009

(August 25)

Senator Edward M. Kennedy died of a malignant brain tumor, ending his 46-year Senate career. He is Massachusetts's longest-serving senator and one of only three members in Senate history to be elected to nine six-year terms. (The others were West Virginia's Robert C. Byrd and Hawaii's Daniel Inouye.)

2009

(October 28)

Former senator Edward Brooke was presented with the Congressional Gold Medal, awarded by Congress as its highest expression of national appreciation for distinguished achievements and contributions by individuals or institutions. The Senate had passed the legislation awarding the medal on March 29, 2007.